Yew and the Sea
by Lady Altair
Summary: A witch cursed to always be abandoned by those she loves, a vengeful Sea, an errant young man, and a shipwrecked prince. A 'write your own fairytale' assignment for my Fairytales as Literature module.


Written as an assignment for my 'Fairy Tales as Literature' module. I left off the analysis, because that's boring (not that it's finished yet...that's not the fun part!) So, my most original work to date. Also, the most entertaining assignment ever.

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In a cottage in the cliffs by the sea, there lived a witch. She was not an old witch, or an ugly witch, or an evil witch. She was simply a girl named Yew who wove magic and cloth, alone in the snug little house that had been her mother's, her grandmother's. As far back as anyone in the little seaside village below could remember, there had been a witch, solitary and benign and nameless but for 'the cliff witch', in the little cottage above them.

Yew lived alone, as her mother Oak had, as her grandmother Holly had, for her line had been cursed long ago by the Sea. The Sea had once loved a witch, in the days when the Earth and Sky had conversed with mortals, but she had loved a man, and spurned the Sea for his ever-changing ways. It was not for her, she said, to be the immortal queen to the mercurial Sea; she loved a steady and true man of the Earth and would not desert him for all the splendour and wealth of the deep oceans.

And so the fickle Sea had cursed her and every daughter of her line. Their love should never run true, every man they loved would grow restless in their arms, grow as moody and changing as the Sea that had been refused.

It came to pass, the curse passed down the line, every witch left abandoned in her cottage by the sea.

A half-finished length of dark blue cloth was strung on Yew's loom, woven of all the greys and blues and greens of the sea and of her hopeless love for the village merchant's handsome son. He was light-haired and Yew had taken all the beautiful colours of the cloak from his eyes; they were like the sea. It would someday be her final gift to him, a travelling cloak woven with magic and doomed love. Though the merchant's son loved her in return, she waited for the inevitable day he would be turned from her.

It came, of course, as all dreaded days must. There had been a most terrible gleam in his eyes as he thoughtlessly told her of the woman, a far-off princess he had seen in a dream, calling out for him. She was dressed in finery, a silver circlet on her head, faceless in his vision but meant for him. There was no longer love in his eyes for the simple sea witch in her rough cottage on the cliffs.

The cloak was not completed, but the merchant's son would not wait. He left the witch, down the craggy cliffs to the road that led south, through the mountains and glens to his fated princess. He did not look back.

In time, Yew finished the cloak. Despairing and alone, she threw it into the sea. She might have thrown herself in after it, ending her line, ending their curse, had she not seen the figure washed up on the shore.

He was a shipwreck survivor from a kingdom far to the south, his great ship broken like a toy in the hands of the furious northern sea. Yew took pity on the man, helping him up to her cottage, feeding him and giving him her warm bed by the fire.

When the sun set and the cold night blew in, a mighty crashing voice echoed through the cliffs. "WITCH!" it roared. "You have taken of me my rightful property!"

No witch had ever feared the sea. Yew flung open her door and shouted back to the sea, "I have taken nothing, but his life is not yours to claim any longer."

A storm was rising up on the sea, wind howling and rain whipping down on the cottage and the village beneath. The sea raged, "You will give him to me, or I will send a storm and sweep the village into the sea!"

The foreign man was honourable and tried to stand from his resting place, to offer himself back, but Yew stood firm; for all of her young years, she had the wit and wisdom of all her family before her and she would not bow to the Sea.

"Let us make an agreement," she said. "You always know the truth from lies; you see the heart of any mortal and we cannot hide falsehood from one such as you. I shall hide in a house in the village. You shall go to each home in the village and seek me, ask each villager if you have found me. If they all answer an honest 'yes' and yet you have not laid eyes on me, you will give up your claim on his life and remove your curse from my line."

The Sea, quite assured that not even a witch might be in every home at once, agreed. "But when your riddle is done, I will have your life as well as his. You will come with me to my palace and sit as its immortal queen, as the first of your line would not."

And so the Sea took the form of a man and descended to the village, where Yew had hidden. He knocked on the first door and was greeted by a woman and her son. "Have I found Yew?" he asked.

The woman replied with a puzzled but sure, "Yes." Her heart was true, and her answer honest. The Sea knew this, and continued on.

And so the Sea went to each home, and received the same answer to "Have I found Yew?"

"Yes," each occupant replied, some sure, some hesitant, but all truthful.

After the door shut on the last house, the Sea roared, having been bested. Yew stepped out of one of the houses.

"You have won, witch. You have bested the Sea; the man's life is yours, the curse lifted. Let me know, now, how it is you have tricked the Sea?"

She replied, "When you asked, each person heard only 'Have I found _you?' _and you _had_ found them. They answered with honest hearts, for none of them know my name!"

And so bested, the Sea faded back, out beyond the horizon to go on in his infinite and ever-changing ways, and Yew returned to her cottage in the cliffs to tend to the man whose life she had won back with her cleverness.

The winter came in howls of ice wind and thick falls of snow, making impassable the narrow mountain roads that led to the south. The man, a southern prince, remained with Yew in her warm little house, waiting out the winter that blocked his long journey home.

The prince, already enamoured with Yew's beauty and bravery, grew to love her in the months he spent waiting in her home. She threaded her great loom to weave another travelling cloak. She wove it with all the greens of a deep wood, though she had never seen anything but the blue sea, the grey sky, and the dull silver-green of the northern mountains. She drew the colours from his eyes, from the beautiful stories he told her in the long dark winter days, about his warm, beautiful green land. She lined it with a deep, rust-red almost the colour of his auburn hair.

Yew gave the prince the finished cloak on the first day of spring. "It is a long way," she told him sadly, already mourning his departure. "You should not delay your leaving too long, or winter will greet you before you have arrived home."

"Yes," he agreed. "But your cloak should not take so long; it will be much smaller than mine."

This cloak Yew wove with joy in her heart. Finished in less than a month, it was pale blue like the tiny, delicate flowers that sprouted from the cliff crags, lined with pearl grey like winter snow clouds. "It will remind you of your first home," the prince told her, but Yew did not look back when the mountains swallowed up the only home she had ever known.

The witch and her love arrived in his kingdom in a riot of autumn colour; leaves rich brown and deep orange and red as the prince's hair fell from the trees. The people in town greet him with cries of "Prince! Prince, you have returned from the dead!"

He took Yew to his father's palace, where she was lauded as a heroine and honoured. They married in a great celebration that lasted for a week, but Yew rejoiced more in her husband than any of the beautiful gowns, jewels, or sumptuous feasts.

On the last day of the celebration, a ragged young man staggered into the hall. "I've found you! Princess!" He stopped, dumbstruck, as his eyes settled on her face.

The merchant's son stood before Yew, and she realised in that instant that she had always been his faceless dream princess.

The Prince and Princess treated the merchant's son with kindness, for he was not to blame for the unfortunate curse. They granted him land and a beautiful manor, for he had certainly earned them in his long travels. The Prince and Princess became King and Queen and lived a long and happy life together. The merchant's son eventually married a beautiful and kindly lady, but a part of him always mourned the happy ending he might have had in the warm little cottage in the cliffs above the sea, far to the north.

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I'm very confident in a decent mark on this; we read through examples in seminar today and a tale without any attention paid to punctuation, spelling or grammar, much less to any of the traditional markings of fairy tales (which are supposed to be present in this assignment.) I mean, it was a story about weasels and sugar cubes. It got a passing mark at around 45 (English marking system). I would definitely love to know if you think there are any inconsistencies or confusing bits before I turn it in a week Friday. None of my friends are competent editors, so let me know! 


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